Okay. When we last left our heroes, Yuuhi was reliving her childhood days with Sumika. Now for a change of pace!

The noble ladies are being made to carry buckets of water up and down hills and such. The demons like to get drunk and pester them, except they're scared of Ayumi-san. Ouka (she also plays a demon!) is blamed for grabbing her instead of a young, pretty princess. Ayumi-san cuddles up to Ouka and urges her to take responsibility for her actions, which only sends Ouka running away screaming. XD The other demons continued to bother the ladies until...

Okay, so she doesn't shoot at them or anything. She was just out hunting with her little lackeys and so happens to be carrying them, but THE FACT REMAINS. BOW AND ARROWS. And her kimono is a bit short see you can see her pants / leggings underneath and I love her outfit all the way down to her orange socks. X3 Anyway, she scolds the rascally boy demons for not being on the watch like they're supposed to and chases them away. Then she informs the ladies that from now on Ban-san will accompany them during their work.

As they move offstage, Dai-chan peeks out and spots her love Tara-chan. She's managed to sneak up this far DISGUISED AS A LUMBERJACK. Admittedly "Japanese old-fashioned lumberjack" doesn't have quite the same amusement factor, but the idea alone makes me grin. LUMBERJACK. ;D

Dai-chan tells Fuuma to tell everyone else that the ladies are alive, and she'll go looking for Micchan. They sneak off again.

Meanwhile it's started to rain. Micchan, instead of being killed, has had her foot chained to a rock and been left alone for however many days. Sumika comes rushing up with a straw coat to shield her from the rain, as well as some food. I note randomly that Micchan does a rather convincing job of "eating" what Sumika gives her. "It's good! What is it?" Sumika: "I don't know, but I think it's made of some kind of meat..." ^^;;;

Micchan coughs uncomfortably and accepts a drink of water instead of the food. They talk briefly about how to overcome the demons, and did Sumika really come there to die, but Yuuhi interrupts their conversation. (Micchan shields Sumika protectively.) Yuuhi declares that she's still keeping Micchan alive until she feels like doing otherwise.

Alice-chan has also been eavesdropping unintentionally listening in and Yuuhi calls her out. Sumika having fled the scene, Alice-chan makes the keen observation that Micchan is in love with the girl. Micchan doesn't have much time to deny it, because then the other demons show up pushing around the noble ladies again. When they see Micchan the women fall at her feet begging for help, but obviously she can do nothing for them. The demons want to know when Yuuhi is going to kill Micchan, and she's like "when I feel like it", so they move on and keep pestering the ladies. Alice-chan has taken the opportunity to sidle up to Yuuhi, but Yuuhi gives her the brush-off. Alice-chan makes a very cute petulant noise and leaves.

Yuuhi and Micchan are left alone to chat. Micchan wants to know why she's been kept alive and if Yuuhi has a past history with Sumika. Yuuhi denies any knowledge of "that girl with the burned face" and notes that Alice-chan hit the bullseye with her statement. Micchan says she doesn't care about Sumika's face or what happened in her past; if they ever make it back to town, she plans to ask Sumika to marry her. Even as it is strange for her to be telling this to her enemy, Micchan admits that she feels a kinship with Yuuhi.

Yet again things are interrupted when Masako enters with several other demons. Masako berates Yuuhi for keeping Micchan alive; Micchan says harsh words that get her slapped around by TamaTama and Tomoe. Masako, still angry at Yuuhi, says she's going to teach her a thing or two about being a demon. Monchi and Riku scurry forward, take Masako and Yuuhi's shoes respectively, then scoot off again with everyone else. Because apparently "teaching your son a lesson" requires dancing with no shoes. XD Masako and Yuuhi both pull out fans menacingly and dance ateach other. Masako sings about what it means to be a demon. The other main demons dance in the background.

Later, Ban-san and the ladies are carrying water from the river again. The young demon girls are cute and give them flowers. Ayumi-san comments on how kind Ban-san is and asks if she's really a demon. Ban-san of course responds that in her day she was something frightening, which the ladies giggle at as they move along. Tara-chan notices someone in the shadows and lags behind. It's Dai-chan -- the two of them have a brief and tearful reunion. Tara-chan laments that if she ever gets back to town, she'll be damaged goods and no one will want her, but of course Dai-chan promises to always stay by her side. ♥ She sends Tara-chan off again, saying that rescue will come soon.

Yuuhi, having witnessed the scene, is troubled by how the two remind her of another pair of lovers from her past. Sumika and Alice-chan conveniently appear to hear the tale of what happened three years ago that made Yuuhi come back to Ooeyama on her own.

Flashback mode again. Yuuhi's wanderings led her to a manor where a woman (Tara-chan) and her son (Kanari) had been sold into slavery. Yuuhi became like a kind of older brother to them and planned to free them so that they could run away together. But one day a bandit was captured and Tara-chan discovered that it was her former lover, Dai-chan. She heard that Dai-chan had turned to a life of crime in order to free her. Tara-chan went back on her word to run away with Yuuhi, saying she had to do what she could to rescue Dai-chan. Yuuhi was heartbroken and left alone with the boy Kanari.

Demonic feelings awakened inside of her, and Yuuhi sounded the alarm, exposing the fleeing lovers. Dai-chan and Tara-chan were shot down in the midst of their escape. The authorities were grateful to Yuuhi, but Kanari, now motherless, called her a murderer and a demon. Yuuhi realized there was a demon living inside of her and came to the conclusion that Ooeyama was the proper place for a murderer such as herself.

Hearing the story Sumika feels sorry for Yuuhi, but Yuuhi says there's no reason to. She's a demon, she deserves her fate, and she doesn't need any pity from an ugly girl with a burned face. Alice-chan says Yuuhi is going too far but Yuuhi doesn't let up -- she gives Sumika a cruel kiss which makes the girl cry and run away.

"Is it okay to end it like this?" Alice-chan asks Yuuhi, who says that it is. Alice-chan invites Yuuhi to have a drink with her; Yuuhi tells her to go on ahead while she has one more angsty solo (not "Usu-Murasaki no Koi").

Sumika presumably gets the other demons stinking drunk, but this happens offstage. She leads BonBon and Akkii to where Micchan is being held, and they free her. Dai-chan, meanwhile, frees the noble ladies and brings them to the same place. They're all ready to flee Ooeyama... except that Sumika has disappeared. The rest of the band goes on ahead (urging the noble ladies to not be so loud in their exclamations of gratitude) while Micchan searches for her. Sumika reemerges at Micchan's call, but says she will not be leaving Ooeyama. She came there to stay and die. Micchan doesn't understand why she so set on staying with demons... But then Yuuhi appears again. Leaning on Alice-chan, both of them looking a little drunk and unsteady.

Yuuhi's like "Micchan, what are you doing just standing there" and Micchan laments that Sumika won't come with her, and "why are our fates intertwined like this" or something. Cue dramatic dancing. Alice-chan dances with Yuuhi and Micchan dances with Sumika, but not for long. Yuuhi pushes Alice-chan away; she moves back to help Micchan take off Sumika's outer kimono. Micchan and Alice-chan dance with the kimono between them while, obviously, Yuuhi dances with Sumika. Ten-chan and Sattsun sing background solos.

Susshii-san has assembled her armies to attack Ooeyama. Anyone who wasn't a terribly important character before is now one of her soldiers, including Monchi ♥ and most musumeyaku from Rena downward. They dance purposefully with swords and bows and such. (Monchi has a bow ♥) Yuuhi dances impressively with a big spear. The mainfour on TeamGood also dance. (YOU CAN SEE MONCHI IN BONBON'S PICTURE♥♥♥) Micchan and Yuuhi cross blades for about 5 seconds. Later, she runs through the battlefield looking for Sumika and also hoping to somehow spare Yuuhi's life.

Masako (and TEN-CHAN), seeing that the odds are against them, rounds up the demons to move on to another mountain or something. Yuuhi declares that she's staying in Ooeyama. Alice-chan, hearing this, also says she'll stay. But Yuuhi tells her to go and "thanks for the memories" and Tomoe pulls Alice-chan away crying. ;__________;

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Sumika appears in the midst of the battle with only a small dagger to defend herself. She vows to stay in Ooeyama with her Ibaragi, and no one is going to stop her. She calls out for Yuuhi and makes a speech about humans and demons, saying Yuuhi was more human than many humans who harbor evil thoughts tend to be.

She finally spots Yuuhi and as she runs to her, a straight arrow hits Sumika in the chest. Yuuhi laments, saying she had been planning to let Micchan kill her so Micchan and Sumika could run away and be happy, but now she will say in Ooeyama with her love. She gives Sumika a final kiss; Sumika murmurs "Ibaragi..." and then dies. Stricken with grief, Yuuhi holds the girl in her arms and plunges into the waterfall behind them.

Micchan sings "Usu-Murasaki no Koi" solemnly. Since that day she has often come up the mountain even though she knows that the two lovers are gone. She imagines she hears the voices of their spirits speaking to her and reflects that under different circumstances, she and Yuuhi might have been friends.

In short (hahahaha I made a funny), I love Team Demon immensely, and Alice-chan is strong and grown up and gorgeous, and Dai-chan gets a really good part, and Ten-chan is a demon AND sings kagesolos...

...But this show is another one of those shows that's mostly just a tragic love story, and as many people know I'm not extremely fond of Just a Tragic Love Story shows.

Still, I think seeing it five or six times still won't be enough. T_____T;;;

This sounds like such a good show - I mean for a start, lumberjacks?! Does it get any cooler? And wouldn't the world be such a better place if all you had to do to teach somebody a lesson was dance at them sternly :)

I really am fascinated by this story. It seems a bit rushed in parts, but that's probably just because I'm reading a summary instead of seeing how they spaced scenes out with musical numbers and poignant silences. 'Cause really, it sounds very cool and maudlin, which I have to admit I can be a sucker for. :D